Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers
That is the issue, the foundational principle of the United States was that we were a federalist system with a weak and narrowly defined federal government. The office of Presidency should be inconsequential to the Everyday citizen of either the US or the world.
The fact that we continually shift more power from Local / State government, then from Congress to the Executive is the exact reason the president is a "Symbol of Power"
>Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers
Again the theory of Distribution apply here to building as well. World Trade Center was attacked because NYC is seen as the Central Place for world finance.
NYC has become too powerful and that power should be distributed.
This is all rank and dubious speculation wrt your general rule about POTUS needing a dedicated security team.
Hell, Duane Johnson needs a dedicated security team.
If you are positing a federal government so weak that POTUS is not widely known within the U.S. population, you're political views are more radical than you're letting on.
The US Navy is the only constitutional branch of the DoD. How is that for being radical.
> Arising from or going to a root or source; basic.
>Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme or drastic.
> Relating to or advocating fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions.
> designed to remove the root of a disease or all diseased and potentially diseased tissue
> of or relating to the origin
> favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions
> Favoring fundamental change, or change at the root cause of a matter.
It seems today however we have allowed the federal government to simply ignore it because it is "too hard" to pass an amendment. Sorry if it important enough to expand the power of the federal government is should be important enough to put in the work to amend the constitution, and if you can not pass it then clearly the nation agree's it is not in scope of the federal government.
And by "nation" I do not mean a "democratic vote where by 51% of the population tells the 49% what do to" which seems to be common in the "Protect our democracy" crowd.
What you're not seeing with your point is that the federal government actually hasn't really expanded their power, it's just that more and more things have been "capitalism-ified" to where doing business purely within one state is uneconomical. More and more of society has transition to conducting business over state and national lines, and thus the federal government is governing more of the everyday person's life than they were 100 years ago.
The same Interstate Commerce Clause that in Wickard v. Filburn the federal judiciary interpreted as giving the federal legislature the authority to regulate intrastate non-commerce; and in turn relied upon in Gonzales v. Raich that the federal government has the authority to regulate the growing and use of cannabis for medical purposes by one man acting within one state and according to that state's laws for his own person.
> More and more of society has transition to conducting business over state and national lines
This is true, but the above examples show that the federal government is intruding in people's personal actions with no commercial purpose that stays confined to one state, on the basis that those actions might exert a force, however minute, on interstate commerce. The federal government may as well say that they can regulate everyone since people breathe air which crosses state lines and therefore is under federal jurisdiction.
You have to be kidding me. I did not think anyone would honestly make that case. Many argue about how the federal government needed to expand their power but I have never seen anyone claim they have not expanded their power at all
That is new one for me, and not supported at all by the historical record, which for example was clear there needed to be a amendment passed to ban alcohol but then magically due to some very bad court rulings (like wickard) they could ban whole classes of drugs without a constitutional amendment
History is VERY, VERY clear that FDR massively expanded the size, and scope of government and held the supreme court hostage forcing them rule his way after striking down many of his laws originally as unconstitutional
No one that has studied American History can say with the strait face the Federal Government has not expanded its powers
This is the nation that hosts the davos summit, is the hub of FIFA and red cross, plus several other high profile multinationals, NGOs, and wotld bodies, and is also the only core european country not parricipating in thr EU zone agreement.
Surely if you know the PM of Spain, Norway or Poland you ought to know switzerland right?
The would be assassins are as backwards about the symbols as the sycophants. They don’t see symbols as a byproduct, a shelved trophy of societal achievement, rather than its cause. It is understandable that a religious person would invert cause and effect, as if the shine of wet streets made rain. It is a bad thing for the US to become a cargo cult of itself.
The formerly-enslaved workers in the American South would like a word about Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865 and his replacement as president by the (Union-loyal) southerner and states-rights advocate Andrew Johnson, who had very different ideas about Reconstruction and the rights of Blacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson#Reconstruction
EDIT: Recall as well the 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian nationalist: That one murder started the dominos falling for a 30-year, continent-wide war (with a 20-year intermission) in which tens of millions of soldiers and civilians died — with millions of those being systematically murdered. Moreover, that new Thirty Years War (Churchill's term) destroyed the fairly-prosperous international commercial system of the early 1900s; devastated most of Europe's physical- and economic infrastructure; and catapulted Russia and the U.S. to the status of global hegemons.
So yeah: Assassinations can indeed be quite a bit more than just personal tragedies ....
Federalism. The Federal Government does far too much and most of its function should be left to State and Local governments.
>>and nuclear weapon problem?
MAD is a terrible strategy, and I dont think our Nuclear weapons serve the function many believe they do.
Because the smaller government is (federal>state>local) the resources needed to hollow it out and made into puppet also drop.
At a national level I am 1 of 331,900,000.
At a state level I am 1 of 7,739,000.
At a county level I am one of 2,252,000.
At a city level I am one of 733,919.
At a neighborhood level I am one of 82,123.
I have four orders of magnitude more influence over my city council rep than I do over my president.
If only things actually worked that way. The vast majority of voters don't exercise that power. Moreover, state and local governments are more vulnerable to capture by rent-seekers and other special-interest groups bent on shaping public policy to suit their desires.
1. It'd be great to use the Australian system of compulsory voting (and it's kind of a community event, from what I've read). But that's not likely to happen in the U.S., because certain segments of the political spectrum don't want "the wrong sort of people" to vote, and so when they gain power they make it as difficult to vote as they can get away with.
2. "Education and empowerment" has worked so well in other areas of life — among other successes, absolutely no one smokes tobacco anymore; everyone drives carefully and soberly while obeying all posted speed limits; everyone eats healthy foods in moderation to maintain an appropriate weight; etc. (Not.)
And that's why in the tech world, for example, everyone takes the time to properly document their code, thoroughly test every release, refactor when appropriate, and clear away technical debt. (Again, not.)
And in medicine, doctors never misdiagnose illnesses or forget important steps in treatment because they always use authoritative best-practices checklists, which the medical establishment works hard to keep up to date and quickly disseminate to practitioners. (Yep, not.)
Apropos of that last example: Remember the crash of the FAA's Notice to Air Missions [NOTAM] system last week? That's a federal system; 50 state systems would be unworkable.
While we're on the subject of NOTAMs, here's a thought experiment: Imagine that the NOTAM system were somehow to be privatized — investor pressure for growth to boost the stock price would eventually and inevitably lead to dangerous corner-cutting and underinvestment.
3. Bottom line: Every human being is a mixed bag: We're created co-creators helping to build a universe, but we can also be short-sighted and narrowly focused on what we want without regard to how it might hurt others. All this can lead to stupid decisions — or malign ones — which we're great at rationalizing. So: Our political structures and laws need to deal with humans as we are, not as we wish we were.
Does that stop corruption in your city? (hint: The answer is 'No")
Or even abuses? (hint: The answer is "No")
In its final days, even slavery was a "more local" policy.
People should get their mindsets right on democratic vigilance. The problem is not ceding decision making to the federal government. The problem is ceding decision making to any government. That's why we need to not only be able to remove people from power, but actually do so from time to time. So that every one from the local sheriff and judge, all the way up to the president and chief justice never get too comfy.
And yet you need the federal government to defend your right to select which state to live in if you decide that you want to move https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saenz_v._Roe
Believe it or not, the current situation yields tons of power to your state, just not powers that involve anything outside of the state (wars, interstate commerce, etc)
What is a better strategy?
>> and I dont think our Nuclear weapons serve the function many believe they do.
What function do you believe many believe they serve, and what function do you believe they actually serve?
inb4 "they don't work anymore", Russia has a mature nuclear industry and huge stockpiles of nuclear material. They're more than capable of making nuclear bombs which work.
I could foresee a wide range of of responses to Russia using a nuke in Ukraine. I highly doubt the US would respond by dropping a nuke on Russia. That just wouldn't accomplish anything useful.
MAD.
And what is it that presently restrains NATO? MAD.
And you’re probably right—it wouldn’t achieve anything useful.
What I’d expect is the first gulf war all over again. Some good 2 months of non-stop relentless air campaign with surgical strikes, and boots on the ground for the final phase. And a dismembered, completely dysfuncional Russia wrapped into endless internal conflicts between the constituent republics at the end.
Except that state and local governments are more vulnerable to capture by rent-seekers and other special-interest groups bent on shaping public policy to suit their desires.
This idea that Federal Government is opposition to rent seeking is laughably absurd given the context of the last 50+ years where ever single omnibus spending bill that is passed is littered with pork to rent seekers.
As Joe Biden says.... Come On Man....
1. A Single vote in a smaller political division carries more weight than being diluted in a large nation like the US at the national level.
2. If the local rent seeking becomes too harmful it is far less costly to relocate to a new City, County, or State than it is to immigrate to a new nation
3. It is infinitely more costly for a large corporation to rent seek thousands of cities / counts, and/or 50 US States, than it is for them to rent seek 1 federal government.
I could add probably 5 more things. IMO Federalism is a more desirable system of governance, and provides ways to limit the damage the inevitable corruption can cause.
A mouse falling the same proportional height will survive without a scratch.
Systems behave differently depending on the scale. Small is beautiful, and its a good heuristic that the smaller the scale the more tolerance to variance that system has.
A few local govts that have been captured (SF? NYC?) will not collapse the US.. But if the FBI, the executive, legislative get captured...
Terrible, but it has worked so far.
What do you propose as an alternative? Mutual disarmament?
Once you have nuclear weapons, there’s no reason whatsoever to EVER give them up.
It seems like the threat of a decapitation strike against the US has been mitigated.
Some random whacko thinking you’re in a love affair with their crush (cough like Jodie Foster/Reagan) is enough to catch a bullet. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley_Jr.]
Whack jobs are a real problem.
The presidential line of succession exists for a reason. It's the office of the president that has the power to authorize a nuclear strike, not the person.
... 00000001?
https://www.aviationbusinessme.com/airports/airport-business...
Goes shopping in foreign supermarkets
https://greekreporter.com/2022/08/13/boris-johnson-spotted-s...
(The actual orders are of course secret and sealed until that time comes, and could be AU/NZ/CA depending on the persuasion of that particular prime minister. However the US is the most logical choice as the other countries have no nukes themselves and would likely be looking to the US for guidance anyway.)
Yet, despite the fact that one of the foundational principles of good governance is to avoid excessive concentrations of power, that does NOT mean that there can be no concentrations of power.
The sad fact is that, whether it is the neighborhood bully or the authoritarian state next door, anyone who wants to live a self-determined life, with a self-determining government, must be better armed, better prepared, and better allied than the abusers and autocrats, or they will be taken over in short order. This includes being able to make decisions quickly. This requires a concentration of power in something like an executive branch.
Similarly, regulating society requires making of laws, and again, by the time a society gets to tens or hundreds of millions of people, this will literally take forever without some kind of representative government; heck, just look at how long it takes to get a couple hundred congress or parliament members to get a basic majority something passed...
So, sure, when you have a tribe of several dozen or maybe the 150 of Dunbar's number [0], the leaders can be near-anonymous or completely unremarkable. Maybe even up to the size of a small town.
But once the size of organization, financing, and weilding of power just required to get anything done to maintain the society gets large, so must the concentrations of power.
The trick is not to pathologically avoid concentrations, it is to balance them.
This is the difference between a democracy and an autocracy. In a democracy, all of the institutions, the govt executive, legislative, judiciary, as well as the press, academy, industry, etc. are all independent, having their own will, centers of power, etc. In an autocracy, all of these govt and societal/economic institutions are bent to do the will of the executive. The trick is keeping those healthy, independent, and balanced.
Assuming that the power needs to exist, this implies that we would need more people, which in turn makes the government larger.
The perennial mistake is believing that if any of these guys get capped, it's some irreparable loss to society. It's not.
Let them play the odds of life like the rest of us do. A society that depends on strongmen isn't a free society.
Like, yes, I would not mourn a lot of people who end up having protective details. But I absolutely don't want to live in a world where all it takes to change a policy is one particularly motivated sociopath. Keep in mind that John Hinckley Jr's assassination attempt on Reagan wasn't out of disagreement with Reagan's policies, it was to impress Jodi Foster. A nobody's obsession with an actress is really, REALLY not the thing we should allow to materially affect our civilization.
I think there's a good argument to be made that the WWII-era Japanese government became the one capable of its atrocities in China specifically because assassination was so frequently employed to check to its power.
Musk or Bezos could request a place deny entry to other customers while they shop or eat. Secret Service can demand. It’s a whole different beast altogether.
1- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/us-pays-2m-a-month-to-...
Also, maybe the US President and other super high level individuals are too powerful. But then if we make them much less powerful, who keeps other bad actors like Russia and China from stomping on whoever they want - ask the Ukrainians or the Uyghurs.